


Ghost

by forgetcanon



Series: and love was their savior [17]
Category: Star Wars Legends: Knights of the Old Republic, Star Wars Legends: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords
Genre: Gen, kreia obi-wans at revan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-15
Updated: 2015-04-15
Packaged: 2018-03-23 01:44:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3750283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forgetcanon/pseuds/forgetcanon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You." Vasha kept her voice polite and light, as she would with a distant aunt she didn't much care for, even to offend. "Are you here to impart one final piece of wisdom before you become one with the Force?"</p><p>She had the sense that her former master was settling herself across from her. Her disapproval hung in the gradually thickening air. “Apparently you still need my wisdom, if you are still getting yourself into situations like this one."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ghost

All things considered, Vasha wasn’t too concerned about the cave-in.

She was uninjured. That was a good place to start. She’d lost her glowlantern in the scramble to find a safe spot, but the Force told her that the space she had managed to create was relatively stable, for the moment. 

Either her team would come to dig her out, or they would not. She was paying them as well as she could manage, but they had no personal allegiance to her beyond their next profit. 

There was the question of them assuming that her limits were the same as a normal humans' and giving up early. But there was also the question of her both being the team's security man and the fact that she carried the activation key for their ship on her person at all times. They’d want to find that, at the very least. The tomb wasn’t _that_ deep.

For the moment, she pressed her datapad pressed firmly against the stone and had it play a repetitive series of tones in various frequencies. Hopefully, her team could use it to find exactly where she was buried. The air would run out sooner or later, but Vasha could sustain herself for almost a full day without it. 

So, Vasha was optimistic.

Until either they found her or she lost concentration enough to maintain her life through the Force, Vasha had little to do. The only distraction was the artifact in her lap, so she turned her attention towards it rather than consider oppressive darkness.

It was a curious thing. A small pyramidal hunk of smooth rock. Vasha traced the deep grooves etched in its surface. It was meant to expand the lifespan of its creator and it still held power, but it was found in a _tomb_. It spat and seethed with the lives used in its creation. Potential wasted.

"It is not what you think."

Vasha could see nothing in the dark, but she knew that voice. It had comforted her as a youngling, chastised her as a knight, and haunted her as a lord. She had not expected to hear it again, except in memory. 

"You." Vasha kept her voice polite and light, as she would with a distant aunt she didn't much care for, even to offend. "Are you here to impart one final piece of wisdom before you become one with the Force?"

She had the sense that her former master was settling herself across from her. Her disapproval hung in the gradually thickening air. “Apparently you still need my wisdom, if you are still getting yourself into situations like this one."

"Of the two of us, only one is dead."

"That is debatable."

Vasha half-smiled. That was true enough. "How long ago did you pass? Did you happen to have excellent timing, or did you wait until you could tut at me to appear?"

"Is that the question you should be asking?"

"It's the question that amuses me."

"You always placed far too much importance on your own amusement."

Vasha resettled herself against the wall. "I was going to be Darth Chuckles, but it didn't roll off the tongue. What is the question that I _should_ be asking?"

Her former master waited. She did not answer questions that her students could answer for themselves with a little thought.

"Why have you come?" Vasha said at last.

She still did not answer. She didn't need to. She came to tell Vasha something that no one else could.

"Is it about this?” Vasha tapped the artifact. Her fingers told her that the triangular pyramid was dry and smooth. Her mind told her that it was slippery. She fought the urge to get it off her lap before it stained her leggings. She'd handled stranger artifacts, but not _much_ stranger.

"Not precisely."

Vasha left the question for the moment. "Tell me, Archivist Kae, do you have any information on this artifact that I've uncovered?"

"It is old," her former master allowed. "And the suffering that made it pales in comparison to the suffering that your adversary has caused since."

"Is it made by him, or another?"

"Another, but the emperor only distilled the technique already present."

"Interesting," Vasha said quietly. "Master, your guessing games are always fun, but I'm running out of talking air."

"Then talk quickly," her master snapped.

"I never expected you to become a ghost just to nag me."

There was a beat of silence.

"I never expected you to become a ghost at all," Vasha said wonderingly. "You always wanted to pass on all your teaching within your lifetime, not hang around and rot while you saw whether or not your students evolved the way you intended. They never did, while you were alive. What changed your mind?"

"That," her master said softly, "is the right question. And it was not a 'what,' but a 'who.'"

"Do I know them?" Vasha asked. Her heart sung, _Bastila, Bastila_ , but she also shuddered to think of her master's grasp closing on her love.

"Quite well," her master said dryly. "A lifetime ago, you depended on them. They are... uniquely tenacious."

_"I approve of Alek, but young Tiniat has other loyalties."_

_"Don't worry about her. She has other loyalties, yes, but they get further away each day that goes by. If she turns out to be uniquely tenacious in clinging to them, it will be simple enough to find an appropriate end for her."_

Vasha had learned to stop being surprised by her past self. What Tessarev had only said in the moment to appease her master had turned into fact quickly enough.

Tiniat had remained on the path of the light side. She’d been concerned about Tessarev’s more brutal strategies and began to question her orders. Revan had thanked her by sending her to Malachor V, to break or die.

Tiniat had done neither.

"Did she return from her exile?"

"In a way. It was not her choice to do so, but she embraced it, in the end."

Vasha smiled. "Good. She was always too _alive_ to be abandoned the way the Order abandoned her." The way I abandoned her. 

Kreia's voice was dry. "That was not my impression of her."

"You didn't know her like I did."

" _You_ didn't know her at all."

“Enlighten me, then. What did dear Tiniat _do_ , to make you change your mind?"

There was silence once more. Vasha opened her eyes.

Kreia knelt before her. She flickered softly in the darkness. Her hair hung limp over plain robes. Her hood covered her desiccated eyes. When she spoke, her voice was soft, and as close to gentle as Vasha had ever heard it come.

“It is said that teachers learn as much from their students, as their students do from them."

Vasha’s solitary breathing filled the space while Kreia contemplated.

“I taught her,” she said at last. “And, in the end, I believed she learned from me an entirely different lesson than the one I intended to impart."

“You’re proud of her."

Kreia said nothing.

Vasha smiled slightly. “I’m proud of her, too. Here we are, the two women who tried to use her most…"

“Do not presume you know her." Kreia's voice took on a hard edge. "She will come for you. She has addressed me, and the Jedi, and she will come to address you as well."

“What do you think she’ll do?”

Even the faint light of Kreia’s form had burned itself into her eyes in the complete blackness of the cave. She could not tell when, precisely, the light had vanished. Vasha blinked it away.

 _The Exile is coming for me,_ Revan thought. She shifted the Sith artifact in her lap. Distantly, she thought she heard rocks shifting as her team began to excavate. _The Exile is coming for her last ghost._

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to jaybauman, for planting this seed in my head.
> 
> Also, I'm aware that you need special training to do the Obi-Wan thing, but... Honestly, if anyone in the Old Republic knew how to do that, it was Kreia.


End file.
